This is a great site for encouraging writers to create stories, poems and songs collaboratively. The site limits how much a user can write and can invite friends or the public to continue and edit a piece of writing.

Throughout the journey from kindergarten to 12th grade, students are supposed to gain appropriate vocabulary and grammar skills that need to be successfully implemented into essay writing. Here are some effective online tools that can help you make the art of essay writing more attractive for your students.

"Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler has an interactive Tumblr Blog called The Why We Broke Up Project, where readers can submit their own breakup stories and read those of others. Along with the tumblr, there is also a musical playlist curated by Handler that can be found here. Creating a way for readers to further relate with the characters of the book, Handler’s “Why We Broke Up Project” is as humorous as he is, and also includes replies from him directly to readers.

"Seeking out content that intertwines with your collection can be fun, especially now that so many are taking the leap, but can you create your own transmedia, crossmedia, and immersive experiences for books your teens already know and love? Of course you can! Here’s a few short ideas."

Jim Lerman's insight:

This approach is a great way to get students involved in their reading, and to extend reading into numerous making and transdisciplinary activities. This article is definitely worth reading!

The free graphic organizers that I offer on this page come from the collection of 50 More WRITERizers, the successor of 50 WRITERizers, which has generated loads of interest over the last couple of years—thanks to you and our colleagues.

Draftback is a Chrome extension that lets you play back any Google Doc’s revision history (for docs you can edit). It’s like going back in time to look over your own shoulder as you write.

"Since Draftback is a Chrome extension, your Docs data never leaves your own computer, and, unless you explicitly publish an excerpt, the extension never communicates any sensitive data with any server—it just fetches it over a secure connection from Google. All the computation for rendering the playback is done by your own computer, and it’s stored there, too."

Draftback is an effective way for students (and teachers and writers) to analyze their writing process. It shows the writing as a video as well as gives you the stats -- like how much time spent working on the document, how many revisions and so forth.

During our conversation, Dr. Beach identified what I consider to be one of the most important educational innovations that digital texts bring to the classroom, namely their dialogic nature. While print texts may inspire dialogue, they exist as static, fixed entities offering one-way communication. Digital texts, on the other hand, can exist in a state of collaboration and change as users create, remix, mash up, or annotate.

More than any other aspect of digital texts, this sense of malleability is what I find most exciting as an educator because it helps us expand the definition of what constitutes writing and it reminds us that writing, just like all forms of creation, is a social practice in conversation with others in the world around us.

A homeless Filipino boy has been overwhelmed with aid after a photograph of him studying on the pavement using faint light from a McDonald's outlet went viral on the internet.

"Nine-year-old Daniel Cabrera will now be able to fulfil his dream of becoming a policeman after donations of cash, school supplies and a college scholarship poured in, his mother, Christina Espinosa, said on Friday."

"The flipped classroom model is a blended learning strategy I use to present my vocabulary, writing, and grammar instruction online. Students watch videos at home where they can control the pace of their learning, then they come to class prepared to apply that information in collaborative student-centered activities.

"One thing I emphasize when I lead professional development for teachers is the importance of flipping and engaging. Instead of simply consuming information, I want students to think critically about that information. This requires that I design flipped lessons that encourage students to ask questions, analyze the information, and discuss concepts with peers asynchronously online to begin making sense of the information they are receiving at home."

"Interactive media lecturer Sandra Gaudenzi shared her theory of balancing audience agency with authorship at the CIJ Summer Conference today, and gave examples of stories across the spectrum"

"Interactivity should offer a degree of agency and participation to the reader, said Gaudenzi, but in doing so the author relinquishes a certain amount of control over where that story goes.

"This "spectrum of interactivity" is being explored more and more by news organisations but journalists and storytellers should always think of what interaction brings to the story and the balance of control between reader and author.

"Using interactivity just for the sake of it is really boring," she said, "So think about what the user might want to do or need to do to feel a part of the story."

"She detailed examples across three parts of the spectrum: keeping the storyteller in control of the story, letting readers shape the narrative, and giving the audience a platform to tell their own stories."

www.familymobileapps.comCreate your own fairy tale or fantasy adventure with beautiful HD illustrations and amazing multi-touch tools. Combine together any combination of castles, princesses, queens, knights, dragons, wizards, and other characters and props to create your own unique piece of art. Then, become the author as bring your story to life by adding text.

There’s no shortage of nit-picking gamers who feel they could easily make better video games than what’s being released every week. And thanks to a new iPad app called Toy Engine, they can put their money where their mouths are and design their own side-scrolling video game, even if they’ve never written a single line of code.

Teachers are always searching for tools to make their lives easier. And so are we. That's why we created the Tools for Teachers ebook series, showcasing free online tools for all kinds of classroom environments.

I dug into my own archives that I've accumulated over my 33 year career in search of organizers that focus on writing. Although I found quite a few, I felt that my collection could be more complete.

With that in mind, I searched thoroughly for graphic organizer ideas wherever I could find them. Although many of the organizers I found were specifically for reading, I adapted and redesigned them to better suit teachers of writing.

The result is what you will see on this page--a collection of 50 graphic organizers designed specifically for teaching writing.

With Slate, Adobe [has launched} a new text- and photo-centric storytelling app for the iPad....

"About a year ago, Adobe launched Voice, its first standalone storytelling app that lets users record their own stories and then illustrate them with images (the Voice app is also getting an update today, by the way). Slate takes a different (and somewhat less experimental) approach and focuses on text and images instead. At its core, it combines the simplicity of the editing side of Medium with the design chops of Adobe.

"Using a set of pre-designed templates, Slate users can create anything from magazine-like travel stories and photo albums to newsletters and reports. As Brian Nemhauser, Adobe’s director of product management for this project, told me, the company is aiming this app at teachers, students, nonprofits, small businesses, corporate employees and anybody else who wants to put together a highly visual presentation that mixes basic text and imagery. Once finished, users can publish their creations on Adobe’s servers and share the link with their audiences. Adobe also allows users to embed their Slate stories on their websites."

Creative writing can be a daunting task for students who struggle to think of story ideas or who don't love the writing process. For kids who have trouble putting pen to paper, there are a handful of fantastic iPad apps that just might inspire them to tell a story. Your students will be able to gather ideas, brainstorm and publish writing straight from their tablet.

For students at all levels, creative writing is an important part of English language arts curriculum. Not only do the Common Core State Standards specifically outline the expectation that students should be able to express themselves through the written word, but this is also an essential real-world skill. Students should have the ability to write narratives that tell a story from their own life or a story that they've imagined. The following apps will inspire young writers and give them a vehicle for sharing their work.

As the 2015 CLMOOC continues through a third Make Cycle, it’s a perfect time to look back at the first few weeks of this collaborative experience and at what’s still to come during the next month. As a reminder, participants can join in at any time—so sign up today to share in the fun!

CLMOOC is a knowledge-building and sharing experience open to anyone interested in making, playing, and learning together about the educational framework known as Connected Learning. CLMOOC provides educators of all types with an opportunity to play with new tools, make projects and friends, and share projects and reflections with colleagues across the country and around the world.

Glasslab Games, the host of Make Cycle #3, will lead a Twitter chat Thursday, July 9, via the hashtag #clmooc at 4 p.m. PDT/7 p.m. EDT/11 p.m. UTC. Make Cycles to come will be led by educators from the San Diego Area Writing Project, KQED Do Now, and the National Park Service. Stay tuned by signing up for the newsletter today.

"Are you interested in integrating media making into your classroom? Making media, such as videos, narrated slideshows and online maps, can be an engaging way for students to demonstrate knowledge and build critical thinking skills. Find instructions, videos, worksheets and rubrics for implementing media-making projects with students. We also have self-paced professional development courses that you can take to learn media production!"

"John Ruskin (February 8, 1819–January 20, 1900) examined the psychology of why drawing helps us see the world more richly in a fantastic piece unambiguously titled Essay on the Relative Dignity of the Studies of Painting and Music, and the Advantages to be Derived from Their Pursuit, penned when he was only nineteen. It is included in the first volume of the altogether indispensable The Works of John Ruskin (public library | free ebook).

It’s a beautiful meditation triply timely today, in an age when we — having succumbed to the “aesthetic consumerism” of photography — are likelier to view the world through our camera phones and likelier still to point those at ourselves rather than at nature’s infinite and infinitely overlooked enchantments. To draw today is to reclaim the dignity and private joy of seeing amid a culture obsessed with looking in public."

Recently I came across this amazing little Tumblr named ‘OtherWordly‘ – itself a play on words. It consists of a collection of strange and lovely words from different languages through different times. What I like most about this selection of consonants and vowels – little meaning-carrying packages of vibration – is that they all try to point to the unspeakable, the transient or the neglected. That which we forget in the busyness of our daily grind. Words have the power to remind us – and therefore we should choose our words carefully so we are reminded of the things that nourish our souls.

Jim Lerman's insight: Quite an interesting list! I consider myself pretty well read, but I had only heard of 3 or 4 of these words before. Nevertheless, each one defines something very specific...in most cases arcane, but specific. Don't know how useful it would be to use any of them in written expression and certainly not in oral -- most people on the receiving end would consider the user to be a show-off.

This is my new must read for everyone. Lassiter's insights about computer graphics (CG) transcend his industry. They offer guidance for UX and web designers (any designer really) and businesses alike. His comments on storytelling and emotion connection are the key to success in design and business. I will be quoting this article for years to come.

"Whether you’re practicing flipped or blended learning in your classroom, set the occasional video assignment, or have just observed that your students are part of the Netflix generation, you’ve likely seen what a powerful tool video can be for teaching and learning. And, while there’s certainly a wealth of great educational content available online, sometimes you — and your students — will want to create your own.

"Terrific news: It’s never been easier to create great video content! We know that quality matters; viewers rarely find shaky, inaudible and poorly lit video terribly engaging. But, an understanding of commonly available software, tools and basic production techniques is all you (and your students) need to create great quality video content. Best of all, you probably have most of the tools you need sitting on your desk right now. In this guide we’ll cover everything you need to know to produce educational and instructional videos using your PC and webcam. Why create your own video content?"

02 What you need to get started

03 Webcam and screen recording software

04 Upgrading your microphone

05 Upgrading your camera

05 Recording video on a smartphone or tablet

06 Production

06 Planning your video

07 Recording crystal–clear sound

08 Getting the most out of your webcam

09 Post–production

10 Adding titles

10 Adjusting volume levels 1

10 Removing background noise and fine–tuning your voiceover

11 Adding closed captions for accessibility

Jim Lerman's insight:

Free with registration.

Very comprehensive, especially for such a short and user-friendly document.

"I absolutely love planning lessons from scratch. I just got a job teaching technology units for a summer camp for elementary age students. I can design and teach whatever I want – planning for a different theme each week. Some of the themes I am planning are: Expanding and Showing Your Personal Interests Through Blogging, Photos, and Videos; Coding and Creating Online Games; Tinkering and Making – Simple Robotics; Hacking Your Notebook; and Creating Online Comics, Newspapers, and Magazines. I have begun the process of planning these classes through reflecting on what the lessons will look like. Here are some questions I ask myself as I go through this process:"

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.